I
agree with Chomsky, but for different reasons. Chomsky disputes the
inference from the evidence (of the Israel Lobby’s influence) to the
conclusion (that the Lobby has the power to move U.S. foreign policy away
from the U.S. national interest.) I
contest the analytical framework of M&W, which includes the concept of
“national interest,” and the separation between domestic politics and
foreign policy. Chomsky’s critique, however, shows that he concedes too
much of the conceptual framework of M&W. As a result, he is forced to
reject too much of their specific claims. Paradoxically, getting rid of
M&W’s conceptual baggage makes their actual claims more relevant.

Chomsky takes M&W to task for two failures. First, M&W misunderstand the
goals and therefore the successes of U.S. policy. Second, and as a result,
M&W fail to consider other dominant interests that gained from U.S.
policies in the Middle East, for example the oil industry. Both
accusations are to the point. Together they form a basic principle of
analysis on which I agree with Chomsky: U.S. foreign policy is determined
by domestic interests.

Chomsky then frames the debate as an attempt to weigh “the impact of
several factors which (all agree) interact in determining state policy: in
particular, (A) strategic-economic interests of concentrations of domestic
power in the tight state-corporate linkage, and (B) the Lobby.”

The
main problem is this: are (A) and (B) different factors at work, as
Chomsky says, or alternative modes of explanations? One can contrast a
leftist mode of explanation, one that analyzes the economic system of
domination, to a rightist vision of history as a struggle between nations,
races, or civilizations. In the leftist worldview, the state is the
executor and protector of economic privilege, whereas in the rightist
worldview the state is the embodiment and executor of the unified national
identity. These two modes of explanations cannot be combined as “factors”.
They are holistic and mutually exclusive worldviews. Both, of course, must
take account of the same facts. Leftists must explain how nationality,
ethnicity and religion manifest themselves as organizing principles of
domination and resistance within economic systems. Nationalists must
justify the existence of class differences within “unified” identities and
separate “productive” from “parasitic”, and “organic” from “foreign”
elements of society. But there is no coherent way to combine these visions
of the world.

In so
far as attacks on the Israel Lobby are motivated by and analyzed within a
rightist mode of explanation, they should be rejected by the left
outright. The issue is not one of weighing specific evidence. It is a
political issue rooted in our deepest intuitions about the world and our
sense of place in it. Ultimately, this is the problem with M&W. Their
“realist” conception of the state as a “black box” is inherently in line
with rightist state based nationalism. Their annoyance with the “Israel
Lobby” seems motivated as much as anything by the theoretical difficulty
of the “black box” model of the state to deal with capitalist
globalization. They want to be imperialists in a simple world -- with the
U.S. in one black box, Israel in another -- not in the world of
globetrotting transnational elites we actually inhabit.

Chomsky rejects M&W’s formulation of “the
national interest,” substituting his own, i.e. the interest of the
dominant “concentrations of domestic power.” In doing so, he correctly
rejects M&W rightist framework. But his formulation is nonetheless based
on the state as the fundamental unit of analysis. And that leads him to
compare “the Lobby,” which is here a guest concept from that other
dimension, with his own concept of the dominant “concentrations of
domestic power.” This is an inherently impossible comparison between two
concepts that do not belong to the same universe. Unsurprisingly, the
mixing of conceptual frameworks leads to incoherence, and Chomsky concedes
that, as soon as the Lobby becomes an important element in Washington
“it's hard to distinguish ‘national interest’ (in the usual perverse sense
of the phrase) from the effects of the Lobby.”

The
way out of this mess is to translate M&W’s concept into our own analytical
framework before we do the comparison. That would mean collapsing the
false distinction between the Lobby and “strategic-economic interests of
concentrations of domestic power in the tight state-corporate linkage.” But we should also loosen the requirements of Chomsky’s “domestic”
adjective. Instead, we should look at Washington as a complex web of
interlocking and overlapping alliances of (transnational) capital and
(domestic) state institutions. The Israel Lobby will then reappear as one
such alliance among many. While U.S. capital emerges domestically, and
while White Americans predominate in its circles, capital is global and
many of the interests represented in Washington lost their “nationality”
long ago. There is as little that is “American” in the interests of
Citibank and Wal-Mart as in the interests represented by the Israel Lobby.

The
capital alliances that make Washington are heterogeneous. Some are clearly
defined by an industry, such as healthcare of agribusiness. Others are
defined ideologically around a mobilizing issue, such as the gun lobby and
the religious right. Yet other are defined by nationality/identity, and of
these the most powerful is clearly the Israel Lobby. Each alliance is
specific in nature and qualitatively unique. Thus it is easy to show that
the Israel Lobby is unique. But it is equally easy to show that the
agribusiness lobby is unique. However, they all share one common
characteristic -- they all serve a capitalist interest. That is a truism,
for the simple reason that you cannot play the Washington game without
capital. You cannot offer career opportunities; you cannot dispense
campaign funding; you cannot share a meaningful rolodex. And without
these, you’re not in the game.

Such a
conception of the Israel lobby dissolves Chomsky’s other complaints.

1.
Chomsky raises a major problem in any discussion of the Lobby. Practically
everyone in Washington supports Israel. Either the Israel lobby involves
everyone, or support for Israel serves so many interests that it is hard
to evaluate who is actually behind it.

Thinking in terms of capital alliances, it is clear why all of Washington
agrees on so many subjects. There are interests strongly shared by all
capitalists, and there is also a common culture with shared beliefs and
ideas that circulate together with the money. Beyond that there are
interests shared strongly by a few and only loosely by the rest. And
further out are the really divergent interests that are the object of
intense struggles. The differential importance of various concerns to
different segments is the stuff that makes alliances possible. Each
alliance has a core that is fully committed to a set of policies, as well
as looser associations -- core elements of other alliances -- that join in
more sporadically.

The
interlocking and overlapping nature of Washington makes analysis
difficult, but not impossible. It is both possible and necessary to
identify the different interests and the alliances they make. It is also
possible to notice when they clash. Once so described, talk of the power
of the Lobby to control Washington becomes incoherent. Nobody controls
Washington. There are more or less powerful alliances, and they usually do
not test their power by engaging in all out war against each other. There
is always a background of cooperation. But it is equally incoherent to
dismiss the power of the Israel Lobby just because others, such as energy
corporations, also supported and gained from the U.S. support for Israel.
This is like dismissing the power of Wall Street investment banks because
agribusiness also supports “free trade.” When Cynthia McKinney was
unseated by AIPAC, it was a service the Israel Lobby performed for
Washington as a whole, getting rid of Representative who actually had the
audacity to represent the poor people of her district. But it was her
disrespect for Israel that got AIPAC to lead the charge. This is how
cooperation works, and one must not be surprised that other segments of
Washington would repay the favor and occasionally support Israel well
beyond what their immediate interests dictate.

2.
Chomsky notes that the Lobby only came to the fore after Israel became
strategically important to the U.S., mostly as a means to combat Arab
nationalism. Indeed, each powerful element in Washington derives a
significant portion of its power from the very fact of being there and
engaging in alliances with other elements. Wall Street wouldn’t be so
powerful if it couldn’t rely occasionally on the U.S. army to collect
debt. The Israel Lobby likewise draws its power from Washington, thanks to
services performed in the past. But it is the wrong metaphor to imagine it
as a kind of a light bulb, one that immediately goes dark when the power
source is cut off. The logic of power is to accumulate and nowhere more so
than under capitalism. The Israeli elite that served Washington in the
last three decades was well compensated, and the same goes for the
American intermediaries who facilitated the relations. In the process of
serving the U.S., Israeli elites integrated their own wealth within the
U.S. capital system and formed lasting alliances with segments of U.S.
capital. They also created and endowed a series of institutions that are
deeply involved in the culture of Washington. These alliances and
institutions now stand on their own, and it would take a lot to disrupt
them, even if Israel becomes as strategically useless as M&W claim it has.

Furthermore, most strategic goals can be achieved in more than one way.
Israel helps the U.S. control the Middle East by simply being a constant
irritant that weakens Arab governments and renders them dependent on
Washington. But is it the only way for Washington to insert itself in the
Middle East? The Israel Lobby does not need to “coerce” Washington to do
its biding; it is enough that it can propose and promote choices of
strategies that are consistent with its interests, and block strategies
that are not. This is the core of the furor over M&W. M&W do not propose a
less imperialist U.S. foreign policy. They merely suggest that the U.S.
could achieve its imperialist goals in the Middle East at a lower cost by
using an alternative strategy. I am not sure M&W are right. Perhaps the
road through Israel is indeed the cheapest and safest for U.S.
imperialism. But they could be right. M&W are, after all, leading defense
intellectuals whose so-called “offensive realism” is a naked justification
for unbridled U.S. imperialism. It should be clear that M&W neither need
nor deserve the support of the left for their imperial stratagems. Their
paper was explicitly targeted to the world of defense intellectuals and
civil servants. But it is wrong to assume that Israel is necessary today
for U.S. imperialist goals because it was so in the past or even because
it is useful in the present. (Indeed, one way to think of the value of the
Iraq War from a neo-conservative perspective is precisely as an attempt by
a segment of the elites to commit the U.S. to a specific strategic path at
the very moment when other paths could have been at least equally
tempting.)

3.
Chomsky faults M&W for the failure to notice that the U.S. has adopted
similar foreign policies in the past in other areas of the world despite
the lack of a relevant lobby. This is a relevant critique of M&W and all
those who believe American imperialism is an Israeli import. But once we
firmly locate the Lobby within the system of alliances that constitute
Washington, it becomes a non-issue. First, it is simply not correct to
describe the level of integration between the U.S. and Israel as in any
way similar to any other relation the U.S. has with a similar ally.
Chomsky himself has written extensively about the so-called “special
relation.” The key question is not the basic American policy as such, but
the capitalist integration of elites. It is precisely because there is no
Indonesian or Chilean lobby that the relations between these countries and
the U.S. are different, even if the basic contours of U.S. policy, i.e.
support for the ruthless suppression of native nationalism, has been the
same. The Lobby is not the cause of U.S. involvement in the Middle East.
In many ways it is the result. But that result has altered Washington in
ways no other imperialist intervention did.

A
final question must be asked: practically speaking, what does it matter?

Chomsky cites Stephen Zunes approvingly to the effect that “there are far
more powerful interests that have a stake in what happens in the Persian
Gulf region than does AIPAC.” The practical implication of this statement
is that it is wrong for anti-imperialists activists to pay too much
attention to the Israel lobby. It’s a waste of resources and a diversion
from the real target -- U.S. imperialism.

The
problem is that Zunes and Chomsky are again confusing their own leftist
framework with the right wing framework they oppose. It is wrong to focus
on identity as such, including the national/ethnic identity of
Jews/Israelis who are key figures in the imperialist machinery. It is
wrong to see the world as fundamentally a clash of tribal identities. But
is in not wrong to strategically focus on the Israel Lobby. The “Israel
Lobby” shouldn’t be an alternative framework that competes with “U.S.
imperialism” as an explanation to world events. The Israel Lobby should
rather be a shorthand designation for a segment of the elites that fully
participates in making U.S. imperialism happen.

To
insist on ignoring the Lobby it is to help it maintain a “safe zone” for
U.S. imperialism to hide within. This is indeed one of the many useful
services the Lobby provides for the larger Washington power system. The
Israel Lobby is today a major purveyor of racist and pro-war propaganda,
which is shielded from public criticism by its association with Israel and
the sword of fighting anti-Semitism. To ignore it is to create a safe zone
for racism and war at the heart of the U.S. public sphere.

The
Israel Lobby is an important and active component of U.S. imperialism. To
insist that one must only focus on “U.S. imperialism” is to limit the
struggle to abstractions. It is as if one were to say, “don’t mind Nike,
it is just a shoe company. Focus your energies on global capitalism.” It
is just as counterproductive to insist on fighting U.S. imperialism while
giving a free pass to one of its major manifestations.

Gabriel
Ash
is an activist and writer who writes because the pen is sometimes mightier
than the sword and sometimes not. He welcomes comments at: g.a.evildoer@gmail.com.